Data from the satellite will be used in crop estimate, survey of geological disasters and other fields, and will be provided to African and Latin American countries for free, the administration said.

China and Brazil signed the satellite cooperation agreement in 1988. The two countries have sent three Earth resource satellites into orbit in 1999, 2003 and 2007, respectively. On December 9, 2013, the CBERS-03 was launched in Taiyuan Satelite Launch Center,but did not reach the proper orbit.